Assessment of inflammatory bowel disease educational videos for increasing patient engagement and family and friends’ levels of understanding

Objective: We developed five educational videos through a user-centered approach for patients with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) and their families and friends. Here, we assessed if IBD patient activation and family and friends’ abilities to understand IBD patients’ thoughts, feelings, and behaviors (i.e., perspective taking) changed after watching the videos. Methods: Through a pre-post survey, we assessed patient activation and perspective taking levels in people with a self-reported IBD diagnosis and their family and friends, respectively, before and after watching one of the videos. Results: Among 767 participants with IBD, patient activation scores increased significantly after watching each video. In regression analyses, patient activation levels were less likely to increase in biologic-naïve participants after viewing the coping video. Among 232 people who knew someone with IBD, perspective taking scores increased significantly in 8/9 domains, which was more likely to occur among women. Conclusions: Educational videos developed through a user-centered approach were associated with higher self-reported IBD patient activation scores and perspective taking levels among family and friends. Practice implications: These videos, which are now widely disseminated on social media, serve as a model for how to create educational materials for improving patient activation and empathy in the social media era.